An ultra-pricey, tall residential tower could soon sprout across the street from Bloomingdale’s.

Real estate investment firm World Wide Group has put a collection of six, low-rise buildings near the corner of East 60th Street and Lexington Avenue on the market for sale. One of the properties was the longtime home of famed dive bar Subway Inn, which recently relocated. The site can accommodate a roughly 280,000-square-foot tower that could potentially rise as high as 1,000 feet.

If a developer opts to include affordable housing, the square footage and height of the building would be permitted to increase by up to 20% more.

World Wide purchased the buildings one by one during the past decade. It has hired a team from Cushman & Wakefield—led by Bob Knakal, Cushman’s chairman of New York investment sales, and brokers Clint Olsen and Helen Hwang—to handle the deal. The site could be worth $300 million or more, a price that would make it one of the city's most expensive ever sold per square foot.

Spanning six contiguous buildings from 143 E. 60th St. to 161 E. 60th St., the development site is across the street from Bloomingdale's flagship department store and near a bustling shopping corridor on Lexington Avenue. Part of the site's value is the 200 feet of frontage along East 60th Street that would allow a builder to create significant retail space.

If a tower is erected on the site, it would be one of few to reach the heavens on the far east side of midtown. Several 1,000-foot-plus developments are already underway farther west, just south of Central Park.

The site sale is one of the latest large assignments that is being handled by Mr. Knakal since he sold the brokerage firm he co-founded, Massey Knakal, to Cushman earlier this year. Mr. Knakal was tapped to handle the sale of 1 Court Square, the soaring office building in Long Island City, Queens, that is asking more than $500 million.

A supertall here would be phenomenal. I mean, obviously, any supertall is great. But here specifically because 432 Park needs some company. I have no problem with it being the tallest building in its immediate vicinity, but I'd rather it was like 300 ft. taller than the next-tallest, rather than twice as tall.

I worked on 57th Street and 3rd in the '90s, and a co-worker used to drag a few of us to this dive bar once in a while. Dark inside and grimy, with $2 bud bottles. Amazing to think that an elegant supertall might replace it.

Back in June, Kuafu Properties was in contract to purchase the assemblage spanning 143-161 East 60th Street, on the northern edge of Midtown East, and now the Chinese developer has closed on the acquisition, according to Commercial Observer. The site has a nearly 20,000 square-foot footprint, and roughly 280,000 square feet of development potential. Kuafu plans to build a luxury residential tower with a large retail base, although the existing six low-rise buildings must first be demolished.

While the design is certainly flashy, the plans are far from a definite go. The entry was for a competition, and while no winner has been publicly announced, even the plans that win RFP submissions typically see major revisions in the translation from renderings to reality. The site’s developer, Kuafu Properties, closed on the assemblage for $300 million back in October.
Nevertheless, the new images give an excellent idea of what’s in store for what could easily become the most prominent high-rise on the Upper East Side.

According to the article, the tower is likely to wait for the next development cycle, like other projects still in planing phase right now. Because of the current market situation, it is likely that only projects being under construction right now will going to be finished in this cycle.

EDIT: Oh, I got a bit confused. There is another thread about this project in the supertall section. I also posted this information there. I think this thread should be closed!